QMI Agency

Duhaime, 58, was not present in court and entered the plea through his lawyer. He's scheduled to return to court on May 23.

The defendant was formally charged with fraud, conspiracy and use of false documents. The latter charge is connected to a contract for the $2.5 billion McGill super-hospital that's under construction in west-end Montreal.

Police suspect SNC-Lavalin, which Duhaime ran until March 2012, might have paid $22 million to land the contract to build the hospital complex.

Duhaime was arrested in November amid multiple scandals involving SNC-Lavalin, which let him go in March.

Court documents allege the engineering firm paid $160 million worth of kickbacks to the former Gadhafi regime in Libya. The money was allegedly used by SNC to secure infrastructure contracts.